


regifted thrifted youth

by bytheinco_nstantmoon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 70/30, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, Lesbian Robin Buckley, Letters, Mother-Son Relationship, Nostalgia, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, SHE HAS A WIFE, Self-Esteem Issues, also the inherent loneliness of ur 20s, anyway, but it is technically theo, hints of stoncy, hurt and kind of comfort, i mean its not really theo, it's actually stoncy i just didn't tell u that, its set in 1992, jancy adopted him thats where im going with this, jancy is married, jonathan writes to his mom, not legally obviously but A WIFE, technically, the inherent trauma of growing up poor, wink wink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26380078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bytheinco_nstantmoon/pseuds/bytheinco_nstantmoon
Summary: Dear Mom,Joyce,Hi.I suppose that now’s the time for an explanation. You deserve that, at least, if you want to read it. So here it goes, I guess.-It's been six years, but Jonathan finally screws up the courage for a letter he should have sent ages ago.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley & Jonathan Byers & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	regifted thrifted youth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherryboris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryboris/gifts).



> this was meant to be part of a larger au but actually. im just gonna post it. its been in my drafts for, what, like four months? ages
> 
> title from thrifted youth by dalynn

~~Dear Mom,~~

~~Joyce,~~

Hi.

Wow. What a lame way to start this off. I wouldn’t blame you if you slap a Return To Sender on this and forget about it completely. That’s what I’d probably do if I were you. So I wouldn’t blame you if that’s what you choose. It’s fair enough.

I guess you’ve probably figured it out by now, but it’s Jonathan. ~~Hi.~~ I’m not writing for money or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. I guess that’s what estranged relatives usually write for, right? I’m actually well enough off these days, though. ~~Not that you asked about my financial situation or anything, I just~~ I’ve included some cash for you in the envelope. I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness, I just figured that it could be… an offering or something of the sort. Or just a gift, I don’t know. It is Christmas, after all.

I know it’s been years, ~~but how is~~ and I’m sorry. I kept out of touch for selfish reasons- it just hurt. I knew it would, obviously, but it was like my body cracked open and all my organs fell out every time I thought of you guys. That sounds so dramatic. ~~I’ve spent too much time with English majors.~~ It just felt empty. My family was my entire life and then suddenly it wasn’t anymore but I couldn’t come back. You get that, right? I couldn’t do that to you guys. I had no right to walk in and out of your lives like that. I made a choice and I had to stick with it. I would have hated myself if I didn’t. ~~I would hate myself for it if I were you, though~~ God, I can’t imagine if my kid did that. I spent years thinking you despised me for it and I guess I kind of still think that because if I think about it ~~too much~~ ~~at all~~ I despise myself for it but… if my son ~~vanished, even if he was being selfish~~ did that, I couldn’t hate him. And you’re not me and I haven’t been through what you have and I fully expect your anger, but I hope we’re similar enough that you don’t hate me. Again, I understand if you do. I just hope not.

I suppose that now’s the time for an explanation. You deserve that, at least, if you want to read it. So here it goes, I guess.

I got accepted to NYU. I don’t know if that’s the best way to start this, but it’s where everything started for me. I wasn’t going to apply, because I knew we couldn’t afford it ~~and I was terrified to leave you guys~~ but my friend from school- Veronica, if I ever mentioned her?- convinced me that I may as well apply, even if it was just a pipe dream. Just to see, you know? Could I have done it in a different life? So I applied, and telling you felt… disrespectful, I guess? I’d already told you I didn’t want to go to college and NYU was such an unreachable ideal that I just kept it to myself. But then I got accepted ~~and I needed to go~~ and I didn’t know what to do, you know?

Hell, Mom, I was eighteen. I was insecure and bitter and damn everything the world was telling me, I was still a kid. I’m still a kid now! It’s hard to grow up when the world doesn’t really want you to. It’s hard to learn you have a right to be yourself. To be whatever you want to be. And back then, I couldn’t have fathomed asserting my right to that. ~~I was a mess. I guess we never really talked about it.~~ I was so incredibly convinced I didn’t matter. I didn’t have any idea how to be a son or a brother or even just a person at all. All I knew how to do was to give as much as I could because that made me feel like I was getting something if that makes any sense at all. Working as much as you’d let me and counting bills and basing my entire identity on my family, on helping my family, was my version of love. And understand that I would never change that. I would sacrifice my childhood and everything else again in a heartbeat a thousand more times for my family. For you. But it warped me. It made my head tell me that I wasn’t really good for anything at all, that all I was good for was giving and giving and giving and taking as little as I could and when I reached a point where I might have to ask for something, I panicked. I know you would have helped me with tuition if I’d told you. Even if it was only a bit. I know you wouldn’t have told me I wasn’t worth enough for that. But I was just a kid with more issues than I think anyone knew. So I applied for as much money as I could and I worked more hours and saved up just enough money to scrape by if I went. ~~Thank God you always made me keep a share of my wages or it never would have worked.~~ So I went.

I felt awful, but not for what hurt I thought it would bring you. That took a while to sink in. It didn’t sink in until junior year, actually, when my roommate lost his mom in a car accident and it was awful and I realised how much I missed you and how much it hurt to be the person someone lost and how you had already lost so much and you didn’t deserve to lose someone else. ~~I should have gotten in touch then. I’m sorry.~~ I felt awful because I didn’t want you guys to struggle. I knew you had assumed I would be home and offering a third salary. ~~Like I told you, I shouldn’t have lied~~ I figured it was a fair enough trade-off for not asking you to pay for college though so I ran as fast as I could and threw myself into this new life I had worked for.

~~I missed you guys~~

Confession time: in my sophomore year, I took this film class, and who was my partner for every project but Nancy goddamn Wheeler. What are the odds, huh? I didn’t even know she was going to NYU. ~~I guess that’s what a breakup does to you.~~ I made her promise not to mention anything to you guys. I know she came home a lot that year. I did everything I possibly could to convince her not to bring me up. She begged me to come with her every time and I had no right but I wish I had. I missed you guys like hell. And I still do. And I always will. I know I’m not part of your family anymore, but I love you and Will and hell, ok! Even El and Jim. I love you guys more than life and I’ll never really forgive myself for ~~running away~~ leaving you behind. I’ll never not regret giving up my home. NYU was never home. I loved it, don’t get me wrong- it was everything I ever dreamed and more. It gave me everything I ever wanted from it. It helped me build the kind of future I never even dared to dream of. It taught me how to be happy. But I still missed you.

Sometimes I feel guilty being happy. It feels like I’m being ungrateful, I guess, because I never loved being alive growing up and now… now I do. Now I love my life. I love my house, I love my job, I love my family. I love that none of our dishes match and I’m always grabbing the wrong shoes because our closet is too messy. I love the dent in the wall behind the bedroom door. I love going out for ice cream without a reason and buying things just because I want to buy them, because they make me happy. I love feeling like I deserve to be happy. But I wasn’t happy with you guys, and I feel sick if I think about that too much. I didn’t love being alive because I didn’t love being the person I was. My greatest talent was separating myself and pulling away, and yes, you and Will were the most important people in the world to me, but I learned to hate myself better than I learned to love you. I didn’t know how to express it and I didn’t know how to fix anything and I didn’t know how to fix myself and… well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, ok? You’re the best mom I ever could have asked for. You’re better than I could have asked for. I love you.

I guess I should explain how I got to where I am, though. It’s all because of Nancy, really. We got married a couple years ago. But before that, we started studying together and she got along with my friends and I got along with hers and it felt like we were finally finding where we needed to be, you know? So we moved in together senior year. Tiny little apartment on 15th street. It was complete shit. Cramped, electrical problems, a door that didn't open unless you unlocked it twice- but we loved it. We hung up a massive Bowie poster for the hell of it and painted the kitchen pink and bought this awful rainbow rug that made us laugh whenever we saw it and it was sort of, like, the first time in our entire lives we could just be ourselves and to hell with the consequences. In Hawkins it was always about who was watching you, who was judging you, because it was so tiny, you know? Like, you couldn't get out of anyone's stare because you just went straight into someone else's. But New York City... New York City, Mom! It's still so strange to think about! The greatest city in America, and I'm just a tiny speck but I'm part of it. Everybody's part of the same system here. It's loud and chaotic and terrifying at times and I adore it, I love it more than I ever thought I would. I knew I wanted to go to NYU, but I never took into account how much I would love the city. I want you to see it. You and Will and El, I want you all to see it. God, it's like jumping inside a chord. Everything happens at once. It's beautiful, Mom. I love it here.

We all do. Steve complains sometimes about the noise, says the cars wake him up at night, but I know for near certain he sleeps better with the noise. I have mentioned him, haven't I? He lives with us. He used to live a block or two away with Robin, but now Robin's settled in with her wife and I guess Steve was just overwhelmed with his sympathy for our poor mess of a family, because he started spending every day over here until Nancy finally just gave him a key and told him to stay. It's his house, anyway- his father had the property, but it was passed onto him, and he handed it over for half the price it was worth. You'd love it, Mom. I remember you talking about how much you love brownstones. To live in a brownstone near Central Park with a wife and kid and dog- no one expected it from me, eh? I remember reading once in high school that everyone lives for love; that's the common goal. Love is salvation. For me, this is the love I live for. I'm happy.

I haven't properly mentioned my son yet, have I? Must be a bit of an odd thought. I hated the thought of having kids for a long time. Nance and I adopted him a few years back, though- he was struggling with social services, and somehow he ended up on Robin's radar. ~~Lord knows how, but everything ends up on Robin's radar pretty damn quick. She could run this city if she had the mean streak.~~ His mom is dead- I don't know if you heard, but the explosion at the Metropolitan, two or so years ago?- and he said… let me quote it to you. Robin introduced him to me. She was trying to be clever, I think, a little bit, by letting me talk to this kid missing his mother. He looked me in the eye, the first time we met, and he said: "My father is a shithead." Call it relatability or a guilt complex or a misguided sense of coping, but I’ve wanted to protect him since that moment. 

His name is Theo. Steve is really good at snapping. He'll pull out the whole damn name, the whole, "Theodore William Wheeler!" and Theo will freeze up like a damn prey animal. ~~We gave him his middle name. He hated his old one.~~ He reminds me a bit of you, though. He gets distracted a lot, and he can ramble for hours, and he loves to read but he can't make it through more than ten pages at most before he has to do something else. He's loyal to the deepest fault I know. He's clever, too, just won't show it unless there's something on the line.

I guess he's the real reason I'm writing. He's fifteen now, which is hell as both a parent and as a brother, because Will was fifteen when I left. I know I'm not much of a brother anymore, and honestly maybe I never was, but Will is still one of the best people I ever had the blessing to meet and I miss him like missing myself. Theo doesn't look that much like him, but it's alike enough that my heart pangs when I don't wear my glasses. Everyday is content and rhythmic and I'm happy, but everyday it gets a little harder to live with how much it hurts to miss people I have loved more than myself for longer than I can remember. I love you, Mom, ok?

I love you. I'm happy, but I would be so much happier if you wrote me back. I live in a dream I never would have dared to dream six years ago. But six years is a long, long time to go without my mom.

Thank you. I love you.

How many times have I said that now? I need you to know it's true. Irrevocably. And I am so, so sorry.

-Jonathan W.

**Author's Note:**

> yes he took nancy's last name what did you expect honestly
> 
> please come talk to me @theworriedman on tumblr quarantine is so goddamn boring


End file.
